Choose a Positive Attitude

This blog is like a broom, a vacuum and a Yankee candle for the mind. It is a tool to clean the cobwebs and clear the dust of beliefs that do not serve me. My intention is to share my journey into my study of the Tao because I believe transformation requires a dialogue. I invite your questions and comments and hope my 32 year old, female, married, gay, Positive Psychologist, Ph.D student lens offers an interesting window to human experience. 

I am writing because I desire peace in my mind and coherence in my heart and body. I desire control of my thoughts and feelings and actions. I seek a way to ride the elephant masterfully. I am seeking a deeper connection and alignment of my dreams, thoughts, feelings, actions, and beliefs.

I believe all that I seek resides within me and in dialogue with you. I commit and intend to a nightly routine of savoring one chapter of the Tao, memorizing the mantra and exploring the next day with it in my mind. This blog is my commitment manifested.

I thank Dr. Wayne Dyer for writing a translation of the Tao and translating it into understandable and relatable wisdom. (Note: The Tao verses are copied from http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html#1).

Tao te Ching Verse 1:

MANTRA

"I CHOOSE to enjoy the great mystery of life. The Tao when named is not the Tao."      ~ W. Dyer

          The most profound part of this mantra for me is “I choose to enjoy”. I’ve been caught up in thoughts and beliefs that “the way” to happiness, to success and to feeling good in my body is to detox. I sometimes think of my choices as requiring punishment or penance. If I drink 3 glasses of wine and drink coffee and eat meat then I must suffer for it. If I don’t follow a routine, if I don’t study everyday for 3 hours, if I don’t write my thesis, if I don’t answer emails, if I watch too much TV then I am not good, smart, trying hard enough, working hard enough, I am not worthy and thus must suffer.

            But isn’t this the great mystery manifesting? Nothing is promised. A does not always lead to B, and I cannot control everything. But I can control my attitude. I can choose to enjoy? I can choose to enjoy. I can choose to enjoy! When you change the way you think about things, the things you think about change. I believe this. It is a lesson taught by both gurus like Tony Robbins and psychologists such as cognitive behavioral therapists.  

“The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin

of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations

arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.”